


Winsome

by msgenevieve



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-05
Updated: 2005-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msgenevieve/pseuds/msgenevieve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Who would have thought that there was something more irritating than fingernails down a blackboard?</i>  Set vaguely between The Long Game and The Empty Child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winsome

  
_winsome \WIN-suhm\, adjective:  
1\. Cheerful; merry; gay; light-hearted.  
2\. Causing joy or pleasure; agreeable; pleasant._

 

~*~

 

It took two hours, but finally Rose had had enough.

Her head was aching. Her throat was scratchy. If she was at home, she could wallow properly in front of the telly, clutching a cup of tea and wrapped in her ratty old duvet. But she wasn't at home - not that she really wanted to be, mind - and there was no way that she could wallow, even mentally, in the face of such infuriating cheerfulness. Who would have thought that there was something more irritating than fingernails down a blackboard?

"Could you stop that, do you think?"

He looked up from the panel he was currently taking apart piece by painstaking piece. "Stop what?"

She wrinkled her nose at him across the TARDIS console. "You've been whistling the same bloody song for the last two hours. It's driving me mad."

He looked offended. "I'll have you know that Kings have praised my whistling abilities." The corner of his mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smirk. "And certain Queens too, I might add."

She squelched the little unpleasant flicker of _something_ that _that_ little tidbit provoked, then shook her head at him. "Well, they're not here. I am, and it's driving me mad."

The twitch, predictably, became a smirk. "You're just cranky because you can't work out what song it is."

She opened to her mouth to shoot back a retort, then clamped it shut again. Bloody hell. He was right. Wondering for the hundredth time if he and the TARDIS shared the ability to get inside her head, she pointed a stern finger in his direction. "What song is it?"

The smirk became a grin. "You wouldn't know it."

She considered resisting the urge to roll her eyes, then decided against it. "Fine. Then tell me why you're whistling it over and over again."

He waved his hand towards the mangled panel. "It helps me think." His gaze flittered over her face, lingering on her mouth, then finding her eyes. He grinned, but something else, something darker, simmered beneath the surface of his smile. "Keeps my mind from wandering."

A prickle of heat skittered up the back of her neck, tickling her scalp. "Oh." Her right foot had taken a step toward the door before she'd had time to think, as though her body knew better than her mind. "I'll leave you to it, then."

It was only when she left the room that she realised he'd stopped whistling.

 

~*~


End file.
